‘I think a lot of people keep thinking about money and everything, and I hope that they see beyond these things. To me, honestly, if my GPA drops now, it still matters, but what I care more about is whether I lose or gain a friend in SUTD, if I created something new here – I think these are life experiences I would treasure more in SUTD. It was my parents who made me realize that money is not everything. I wanted to invest, I wanted to get rich fast, but they said, ‘Why are you worrying about money when you are not actually in need of anything? You should just enjoy your life. Money is not everything, grades are not everything. Even if you get lousy grades, you are still our son after all what.’

It made me realize that there is much more beyond money. I just want to say that not just in our society, but even in our school, we can often be blinded by these desires and make ourselves miserable because of them. The way I prioritize is the reason you see me smiling most of the time, apart from me cursing and swearing when I am organising an event. It is just quite funny that I had the opportunity to study in this school, learning the things I am learning now, even laughing at the simple things like what happened in the previous days – like Xuehen making an awkward comment and how I couldn’t stop laughing about it….or smiling because I was there for my friend when he or she needed me.’

What inspired you to come up with the Valentine’s Day mailbox initiative and what kind of culture do you hope to create in SUTD as the new Events VP of the student government?

‘I really think that when you are planning events, one thing I find lacking is the consideration for human reaction. So when I am planning events, I always think to myself – what would I do as a normal person? For example, for the Valentines Day booth, I can honestly just create a bazaar – everyone come, just haha huhu heehee or something – but I realize that if I am just a normal student, I wouldn’t even go, because to me, it is just another normal bazaar. Because of this, I thought that we need something that would get more students involved in the event. We had this very preliminary idea in mid-January about Valentine’s day where I suddenly thought about HDB mailboxes, and how my mum was always checking ours. Even if there is likely nothing in the mailbox, there is still this tendency to check it. Following that idea, if everyone has a mailbox that belongs to them, regardless if it has anything, you would still feel the need to check it, and the experience imprints itself as a particular memory in your mind. Isn’t that making use of human behavior? It becomes memorable la, so that’s how I feel how events can be successful – by creating a personal memory to each and every individual. I would do something that takes more effort and impacts people at a deeper level.’

Z I K A I
N G
< Class of 2016, ESD >

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